


don't go blindly into the dark

by princegrantaire



Series: drift down into the new dark light [1]
Category: Green Lantern (Comics), Sinestro (Comics)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fear, Light Angst, Lost Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24254038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princegrantaire/pseuds/princegrantaire
Summary: The ache never fades. The guilt, the dead weight of Arin in his arms. None of it. Sinestro loses his home three times over and finds no comfort in rebuilding. In exile, he’d often thought of Abin Sur and Hal Jordan, how things might have worked out differently, how he’d fallen and no one had caught him.
Relationships: Hal Jordan/Thaal Sinestro, Thaal Sinestro/Arin Sur
Series: drift down into the new dark light [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1785769
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	don't go blindly into the dark

**Author's Note:**

> a sinestro character study because he's in desperate need of being treated like the complex character his solo showed us he can be! a mix of canon, solo series and dcuo. brief (implied) ref to blackest night (see if u can catch it!).
> 
> AS ALWAYS ALL MY THANKS & LOVE TO MY BEST FRIEND @SLAAPKAT FOR SUPPORTING ME AND BEING A CONSTANT INSPIRATION! (AND FOR GETTING ME INTO THIS KNIGHTMARE IN THE FIRST PLACE :) )

The ache never fades. The guilt, the dead weight of Arin in his arms. None of it. Sinestro loses his home three times over and finds no comfort in rebuilding. In exile, he’d often thought of Abin Sur and Hal Jordan, how things might have worked out differently, how he’d fallen and no one had caught him.

It’s been a long time since exile.

And no time at all.

Most of all, Sinestro comes back to the fear. In a manner of speaking, it’s a trap of his own design. The ring feeds on the fear and, in turn, ensures he pushes on, takes care of basic needs, and reminds Sinestro not to dwell too long. A funny arrangement. In the depths of his oft-forgotten heart, he knows he’s not mastered it as much as merely channeled it in the right direction. Sometimes, it creeps up on him, makes his ring glow a little brighter.

Encounters with Star Sapphires rarely help.

There are few things Sinestro is wary of, Carol Ferris among them. No, not Carol Ferris per-se but, rather, the power she thoughtlessly wields and what she’s come to mean for Jordan.

In the aftermath of one of those pesky world-ending events that had required precarious cooperation on all sides and of which Sinestro has seen more than his share, he’s found himself here, alone in a half-empty room he’s claimed as his own on New Korugar. Not on Ranx, with his corps. Not out there, among the people who would never see him as one of their own again.

A teleporter to Zamaron had needed to be activated and Jordan’s-- _feelings_ had done the trick.

It’s hard to tell why Sinestro finds the notion so impossible to wrap his head around. Not-so-distantly, it stings, reminds him of past personal apocalypses no man should have lived through. Lived, yes, but Sinestro has not made it past them. He’s been thrown back over and over, at the mercy of every betrayal. It’s not like he’s been expecting Jordan to follow him home, puppy-love at thirty-something, but--

There must be some sanctity to be respected in regards to the on-and-off trysts they’ve fallen into as of late. There _must_ be. Or, foolish as always, Sinestro’s wasted much of his time on an unworthy candidate.

He doesn’t see why Jordan and Carol should get the benefit of strolling hand-in-hand into the sunset after a job well done when Sinestro’s own love had been swallowed up by the abyss. Korugar had been destroyed and Jordan had gotten his backwater city back at none too great a cost. Variations on a theme. Meaningless drivel he’s got no business getting stuck on.

Sinestro wills the uniform away and, now clad in his blue-and-black day clothes, lays back on his bed. There’s a stab of breathless pain at the movement. He’d almost forgotten the fight, the blows he hadn’t quite felt as they’d landed. The ring must be low on charge.

His room’s bare, more so than the quarters on Ranx. Barely lived-in, barely visited. Maybe it says something about himself.

It’s unlike him to be here in the first place.

The silence is broken by the soft swoosh of the door sliding open. Sinestro doesn’t have to look, he _knows_. No one else would dare.

“Soranik,” he says, partly in greeting. He’s tensed just enough, ready to spring up, though she’s seen him far more beaten down than this. Soranik makes a fine Lantern. On occasion, Sinestro even feels something not unlike pride swelling in his chest, aware he’d had little to do with the person his daughter had grown into.

And, at times, he can’t bear to face her.

Tonight’s one of those nights. Soranik has too much of her mother in her and, perhaps, too much of Sinestro himself, too. He recognises the deadly ambition brewing inside. Sinestro’s mistakes are not worth repeating, his belief that he’s saved Soranik from an abrupt downfall at the hands of the Guardians holds steady.

If only Jordan had been so open to the truth.

“I heard today went well,” Soranik starts. The bed dips as she sits on its edge, closer to real sentiment than she ever allows herself to show around Sinestro.

There’s a question in there. He hears it loud and clear and does little but sit up, back quite literally against the wall. For Sinestro and Soranik, affection is inaction. No insults thrown, no constructs aimed at anyone’s throat.

On the other hand, _concern_ \-- that’s something else. He doesn’t know what to make of it.

“The universe continues, yes.”

Here’s an out, a stifled end to a stilted conversation. Soranik, never fond of mincing words, doesn’t take it. She arches an eyebrow, startlingly familiar, and whatever she’d been looking for seems to be found somewhere in the ill-suited vulnerability Sinestro’s been caught in. “You’re doing it again,” she offers in lieu of explanation, intent on pushing and prodding to her heart’s content.

It’s not a complete lack of tact, Sinestro supposes, but a mere avoidance of it. Niceties do not concern her.

“You’re looking at me like-- Well, you’re _not_ looking, I guess,” Soranik continues, firm, before Sinestro’s got a chance to make his denials, “So, what happened? Jordan ran out on you again? Sapphires?”

 _Annoyingly_ perceptive, that’s what his daughter is.

“You’ve got her eyes,” he blurts out and does look up then. Sinestro has carefully eradicated any tendency towards heartfelt confessions at short notice but tonight-- Well, it’s brought something back, something of the man he’d once been that he’d much rather keep buried deep.

Her.

 _Arin_.

There’s no need to say it.

Soranik shifts but doesn’t fidget, carefully reins herself in, just like Sinestro’s taught her. “What was she like?”

It had to come sooner or later. He’s almost surprised Soranik hadn’t asked before, though the Natus had been good to her, as Arin expected them to be. Once or twice, Sinestro had tried preparing himself for the eventuality, willing to part with just enough to satisfy a brief curiosity. Now, no words come.

Which is to say: no words could possibly contain Arin Sur.

Lanterns grow attached to the ease of the emotional spectrum. Arin had loved and hoped and feared and was as stubborn as her brother, as any Green Lantern. No easy way to capture it, force it into a neat little box of categorised predispositions. Arin had moved to Korugar with no knowledge of the language and whatever paradise Sinestro had found, had been with her. Above all else, Arin had _lived_. That’s what he’d taken from her. Not a day goes by when Sinestro doesn’t wish it’d been him crushed under the carnage of his own idiocy.

“Kind,” he decides, at last, like it means anything at all, “Practical. She sent you away for your own safety.”

“Because of what you--”

“Yes.”

Not too long ago, Soranik might have been perturbed, might have reminded Sinestro of all the ways he’d failed Korugar and all the ways he’d torn apart the tatters of his own life. Instead, she frowns, dangerous in the dim light undercut by the glow of their rings. There’s something to her, a half self-congratulatory understanding that he hadn’t gone wrong in the choosing of the latest leader of the corps.

“Whatever the Sapphires… inspired in you, I’m sure you can tap into their own fears,” Soranik says -- as if it’s a mere matter of unbecoming _weakness_ \-- and then, a little softer, “I used to wish I could take all of this back. Green, Yellow, _you_ , all of it. Not anymore.”

That’s--

Sinestro wants to reach out, an urge seldom awakened before.

He doesn’t.

“I feel the same way,” he admits. It’s as good as it gets.

Soranik seems to take that as her cue and nods before she makes her way out, quick and quiet like when she’d come in. Sinestro, once again left to his own devices, draws his knees to his chest and simply sits, his lowest points looming too close at hand. It’s Jordan’s fault, surely. Had he been granted the dubious pleasure of his company, Sinestro would’ve been sufficiently distracted and, in fact, even preoccupied.

As it stands, his thoughts don’t have the benefit of straying elsewhere.

He extends a construct hand, skeletal, to ensure the door’s been locked then looks closely at his ring. These days, Sinestro rarely takes it off, though he knows he should, that even the Green Lanterns are instructed to do so every now and again.

What he does is aim it at the empty air before him.

The construct flickers in and out of existence, a translucent sheen to it, the indistinct blur glimpsed in a fogged up mirror. Sinestro’s hand curls into a fist. It’s-- _amateurish_ , and that’s being kind. It can’t be the low charge, he’s done his best work with nothing at all.

Another try yields much the same result.

It’s _love_ , Sinestro realises. The ring can’t -- or won’t -- operate to full capacity as long as there’s love overpowering the ever-present tendrils of fear gripping him. Sinestro sighs, rubs a hand over his face and freezes, horrified, at the hint of stubble coming in. If nothing else, it shocks him out of one spiral into a deeper one. He makes a sound not unlike a strangled sob and then, aware that there’s no need for future whispers in the dark, promptly shuts himself up with the aid of a still-legendary willpower. The loss of control is frightening, the hair-trigger more so.

This isn’t _him_.

Better said, it hasn’t been him for a number of years now. Sinestro does not wallow in self-pity, no matter what the casual observer might stand to gain from this pathetic display.

And yet, somewhere along the line, his construct’s taken shape. The faint glow of it catches his eye. He hadn’t realised he’d still been-- _projecting_ , he supposes, but then again, he’s thought of little else. This time, in the grasp of fear, she’s clearer, more of what Sinestro had intended.

It’s Arin and... _not_. She’s wearing the dress with the billowy sleeves she’d been so fond of, that typically Ungarian beadwork running through her braided hair but her eyes are--

Empty.

Try as he might, Sinestro can’t will the Arin construct into warm eyes and an easy smile. She’s beautiful, as she’s always been, but just another cruel parody of lost love. Sinestro’s endured one too many. The funny feeling in his stomach grows into a sinkhole. The longer he looks, the more it strikes him as a mounting indictment of how far he’s fallen. He can’t remember the way Arin would hold herself, her kisses, her laugh.

What Sinestro does remember is the end. The grief and the fear. She’d blamed him-- she’d been _right_ to blame him--

The construct vanishes into thin air with a flick of Sinestro’s wrist. Plunged into darkness once more, he sits perfectly still and breathes and doesn’t think of much at all. In the meantime, his ring’s been fully charged. The irony is not lost on him.

He’s survived it already, reliving it doesn’t help.

Yes, he’s survived every single thing the universe has thrown at him. He’ll get up, shower, shave, allow himself the hypnotic pleasure of his nightly skincare routine and then, perhaps, pay Jordan a well-deserved visit. Depending on what company might or might not be present, the evening could take a more pleasant turn.

Sinestro doesn’t move.

But he _will_.

He always has.

**Author's Note:**

> \- title from florence + the machine's "light of love" (don't go blindly into the dark/in every one of us shines the light of love)  
> \- sinestro's space skincare products are my favourite running joke
> 
> please let me know ur thoughts!
> 
> i'm @ufonaut on tumblr.


End file.
